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Hi All,

Semi-Off Topic, but concerns provenance and photo-proof. Below is a section of wood sold by a HUGE auction house (Biggest Titanic specialists and liner experts) in the UK as "...from Cabin 1603..." (whatever that is) of the Cunard greyhound express liner Mauretania of 1907, the ship I research, write about and collect. The overall provenance is solid from 1907 (carved/installed) to 1935/36 (scraping and 1st auction)) to 2000 (found in a barn) to 2007 (auctioned to a Cunard Commodore) and then sold to me, but the poor thing was totally misidentified. Shown upside down in the listing I bought. :(

Please click for full image: 

Below is the result of my own research.This is a composite of three images of the Grand Entrance of the Mauretania, looking forward into the Library Entrance (port side, see room on left with chairs & columns). On Titanic (a much slower ship) this would be the top of the Grand Staircase. The photo-composite is self explanatory. Being French Walnut, and having the same execution and flavor/style of carving as the Entrance capital section I have, the small carving fragment, and the Smoking Room dolphin frieze John M-G (1929-2013) had and let me examine and photograph (all by Turner and Lord), and with all the proportions and the motif matching, this I believe is a dead match - down to the horizontal "line" where there are two panels under the carved half-circle motif, which is seen elsewhere in the Grand Entrance. In the archival photo, the lighting is very different as there is a skylight above. Now, with photo provenance, it is much more valuable. It is NOT easy to find and provide this kind of provenance - hardly anything of this type ever has it. I am very pleased to have found this.

Please click for full image (all this work and I misspelled "Turner"...). I'll fix.

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Hi All,

I forgot about this image - another example of this type of photo-provenance. The small bit is in my collection - this is from Mauretania's First Class Lounge by Ch. Mellier & Sons, in old growth African mahogany. The color photo shows a pub in Bristol that has large portions of the Lounge. The pilaster I sold to the Discovery Museum came from the man who owned the pub and installed the paneling and molding. The motifs are egg and dart with "Greek key". My section still has the gold leaf, gold paint and original rubbed finish - the pub has painted much but not all of their gold leaf "gold" (look at their "Greek key"), and polished the heck out of the wood :( but you can see how grand it all was.

Eric, you should be working for the NYPD. It's rare in today's culture that collectors actually do the research into what they collect. It adds a dimension of satisfaction that few experience anymore. Everyone wants it prepackage and easy peasy!

Thank you so much, Joe. It really does amp up the enjoyment!

Hi All,

another collector has told me I am nuts. Can't say I like that. But the photographs show what they show. No?

E.  

Sticks and stones..... Enjoy your collection and the way you collect. Most people probably think I'm nuts but I'm too crazy to care!

Well said! :)

With regard to today's discussion, if I did not use my own eyes and challenge "The Experts" (think for myself) I would think I had a relatively common bit of cabin molding made by in-house Swan Hunter woodworkers and not Grand Entrance molding by carved Turner & Lord...

I got this in the mail this morning - "Hi, Eric. Looks like you nailed it!" - X. XXXXXX"

Happy day! Not only did the walnut molding from the Grand Entrance arrive today but so did this! Elkington of Birmingham, hallmarked sterling silver and with date stamp code "M" for 1911. A pre-WW1 Cunard R.M.S. Mauretania souvenir spoon purchased on board in the Barbershop. It could have been purchased on Lusitania...Very scarce/Rare. Uncleaned, for a long time. I would not buy a shiny, cleaned spoon. This has the milky-white-blueish translucent patina over the "tarnish" (on the bright areas). I don't know how to fake this - it can be seen on original Proof silver coins (mostly 25C) from the 1930's/ early 1940's

Click for full image. The Cunard crest is amazing in rendering:

 

BTW, this Roman motif of crossed ribbons over reeds on this spoon was employed all over the ship, from woodworking to brasses.

Hi All, another expected addition. Part of a fog horn or bridge siren from Mauretania (1906). Brass mounted to fine teak base turned from her decking. Old patina - not polished. Made by Hughes Bolckow Ship Breakers, Northumberland, 1935/36. Quite possibly a presentation piece (those are not always marked). In over 20 years of looking I have never seen another nor have my collecting buddies. Small, but dense with quality. If her port holes were her eyes (and I have a port hole dog), and her decks and grand public spaces were her body and adornment (I have  a good bit of that now), her engine her heart (I have one of her turbine blades), then this is something like one of her voices. :)

I did not realize I had this image. It is one where I know these horns are in use. The text is mine. The photo was a previously unpublished candid found my me.

10 AM, July 3rd, 1935..

."...Correspondent David Walker, placed aboard by the Daily Mirror to record the final 488 mile journey north, reported that “…It was from the Tyne that she came triumphantly to answer Germany’s North Atlantic challenge nearly 30 years ago.  In brilliant sunshine aeroplanes zoomed around her like flies, and as we gradually left smaller boats behind, we could just hear the sounds of hundreds of voices singing Auld Lang Syne.  All the way north ships of every kind – even sailing vessels – have saluted the old lady.”  At Tynemouth, with horns blaring, she fired rockets from her bridge in a last gesture.  Then, at about 10:15 a.m., she signaled a final, simple, and poignant message to the town of her birth and men who built her so many years before.  “Goodbye, Tyneside.  This is my last radio.  Closing down forever, Mauretania.”  A lone tramp steamer she encountered the next day while heading to her demise sent a message that summed up the feelings of many; Goodbye old lady, it’s a damn shame.”  In just nine months the Mauretania, once the unsurpassable fastest liner on the Atlantic, would be an oily rusting hulk on the damp shores of a windy dockyard on the Southern coast of Fife..." EKL 2009

Full Article

This piece arrived - here is my own photo - looks a bit different...this is how it would look standing under it looking up on your way forward to the Library from the Grand Entrance:

Click for full image:

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